Mica Lemiski

Alicia Elliot joins Mica on the couch to discuss why seeing yourself and your community lovingly represented in literature is so important, and also why colonialism sucks. Also included: Alicia reveals her favourite shade of lipstick, tells us why land acknowledgments can be so problematic, and discusses the Mohawk translation of "depression" and its significance to her.

Sooo . . . now what? It's the question on everybody's mind, and here to help us sort through the raging garbage fire of our culture (aka rampant sexism) is Morgan Brayton, a most wonderful actor, comedian and writer. Morgan's contribution to the #MeToo dialogue is essential, in part because the movement has impacted her on a very personal level. Join Mica and Morgan for an emotionally intense, but ultimately morale-boosting, interview that covers everything from the "rapist roll call" to the Marvellous Mrs. Maisel. Photo: Morgan Brayton.

Do we ever really know our parents? Do we even want to? These are just some of the questions author Gurjinder Basran (Everything Was Goodbye, Someone You Love is Gone) tackles with host Mica Lemiski on Part 2 of our Family Secrets episode of Fainting Couch Feminists. Also included in this episode: a dove flies into Mica's window, Gurjinder reveals her past as a nosey child and discusses the importance of grieving on your own terms.

When a loved one dies, is “closure” something we really want? Carys Cragg (pictured)—author of Dead Reckoning: How I Came To Meet the Man Who Murdered My Father—doesn’t think so, and says her relationship with her father, who was murdered when she was only eleven, continues to evolve 25 years after the crime. In Part 1 of our “Family Secrets” episode, host Mica Lemiski chats with Carys about why she decided to contact the man who killed her father, and what it means to finally share her own side of the story.

Poet and essayist Nicole Breit is the winner of Room's 2016 CNF contest. Her piece, "An Atmospheric Pressure," is published in our most recent issue—Room 39.4 "This Body's Map"—and explores the complex emotional ground that accompanies the death of a first love. We recently had the chance to chat with Nicole about her writing process for "An Atmospheric Pressure," what it means to excavate a memory, and the revelations that can come from writing about the self.

With the deadline for Room’s Short Forms contest less than two months away (closing on January 15, 2017), Mica Lemiski discusses genre-bending writing and what it means to step outside literary conventions, using Maggie Nelson and Amber Dawn as examples.